This document describes the Simple Messaging Framework build process. It describes software requirements and the steps to build the framework from a source distribution. If you wish to use a prebuilt binary distribution, please refer to the Installation Guide.

We recommend that you store the Simple Messaging Framework and other required libraries under one library directory. This makes it easy to share the libraries among multiple projects. See the example below for a sample directory structure. Note however that this is only a recommendation; you may choose any directory structure based on your preference and needs.

Get the latest SMFW source archive from the project download page. Explode the archive to a directory on your local machine. We will refer to this directory as the prj.dir.

Step 2: Download required libraries

Get the archive of 3rd party libraries required by the framework. Explode this archive to a directory on your local machine.

Step 3: Copy ant-contrib.jar to Ant lib directory

Copy ant-contrib.jar from the ant-contrib library to ant-1.5.3-1/lib directory.

Step 4: Copy junit.jar to Ant lib directory

Copy junit.jar from the JUnit library to ant-1.5.3-1/lib directory.

Step 5: Copy xalan.jar to Ant lib directory

Copy xalan.jar from the Xalan library to ant-1.5.3-1/lib directory.

Step 6: Set up build properties

Edit the file prj.dir/ant.developer.properties to make sure it has the correct directory paths for your environment. If you have installed your libraries at locations recommended under Directory Structure, then you may need to edit only one path - the lib.dir.

Step 7: Build the framework

Open a command shell and change the current directory to the prj.dir. Execute the following command to build the framework: ant dist. This will create the framework jars under prj.dir/dist/jars and the documentation under prj.dir/docs. It will also create binary and source distributions under prj.dir/dist.

At this point you can start using the framework in your applications. You may wish to test out your installation using the demo applications supplied with the framework.